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When your child is the bully
When Sue Parker* was 6, she began teasing Kate, her 2-year-old sister. Soon the teasing escalated into physical aggression: pushing and shoving, grabbing Kate's coat when they were out in the park, throwing it into the dirt and stamping on it. By the time Sue was 12, her mother received weekly complaints of her picking on other children, verbally and physically.
"We were at our wits' end," says Sue's mother, Frances Parker* of London, England. "We'd seen how Sue treated her little sister, but had put it down to sibling rivalry."
It took many hours with the school counselor, along with some family therapy, before things improved. "It was really hard," Parker says. "My husband and I had to hear how we had never set clear boundaries for Sue, and how she was angry with us and with the world."
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